A MOTHER killed with her daughters during the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel grew up in Staple Hill.
Lianne Sharabi, who was 48, was killed with her daughters Noiya, aged 16, and 13-year-old Yahel, in their home in Kibbutz Be’eri.
Her parents Gill and Peter Brisley said their daughter and granddaughters had been found “cuddled together” in their home by an Israeli soldier, days after the attacks that claimed 1,200 lives.
Lianne’s husband Eli has been missing since the attacks, and is one of around 240 people believed to have been taken to Gaza as a hostage.
Mr and Mrs Brisley, who now live in South Wales, told the BBC that Lianne had been a pupil at Mangotsfield Primary School and had been a “happy child” growing up.
They said she had always wanted to travel the world and first visited Israel for a working holiday at a kibbutz, a type of commune, when she was 19, before meeting her husband and settling there.
Mrs Brisley said Yahel and Noiya “were beautiful and lovely grandchildren,” and the family regularly visited Bristol.
She said Lianne was a “wonderful” person and a devoted mother, who had died “doing what a mother would do – holding her babies in her arms, trying to protect them at the end”, which was “a small comfort but a comfort nevertheless”.
Mrs Brisley said she and her husband had visited Lianne and her family in the summer and the place where they lived had felt like “the safest place to bring up kids” with good schools and a close-knit community. Yahel had started scuba diving and had a keen interest in nature and space, while Noiya wanted to be a social worker.
The funeral for Lianne and her daughters was attended by hundreds of people but Mr and Mrs Brisley were unable to travel to Israel for it.
Since the attacks by Hamas on October 7, attacks on Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces have killed more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-led Palestinian authorities.